Prime Life again chose Oakland Excelsior to provide a replacement lift at its Ashlands Residential home in Leicester.
The 13 person Stretcher / Passenger lift was recently placed into service in a new block constructed next to the existing residential home. Oakland liased closely with the engineer and contractor to identify suitable guide and door fixings for the unusual pre-cast concrete lift shaft construction.
Following its opening, the residents of the existing home were moved into the new block to enable a comprehensive refurbishment of the original home to take place.
Part of the refurbishment contract was the replacement of the existing obsolete lift, which was fitted with manually operated doors and no longer met the disabled access standards.
The existing lift shaft presented the challenges of being an unusual shape, with limited pit and headroom dimensions, together with the fact that the lift machine was located within the roof space where the presence of asbestos had been noted.
As a lift manufacturer Oakland Excelsior was able to design a lift car to suit the existing shaft and offered a 10 person capacity lift with automatically operating doors, as opposed to the minimum 8 person lift needed to meet the disabled access standards. A special car sling was also designed to enable the lift to be accommodated within the existing pit and headroom dimensions and Oakland obtained the necessary Notified Body approval and fitted the equipment in the pit and on the car top which is essential under these circumstances to maintain engineer safety.
In addition, by installing a hydraulic lift and utilising an existing redundant store room at Ground floor, it was possible to avoid the costs involved in removing the existing heavy drive machinery and any hazards in working in the roof space.
Our ability to provide a full lift design and technical service enabled the client and the contractor to manage the builder’s and electrician’s work associated with the lift project.
